Questioner: Sir, I am pursuing MSc in physics. After watching your videos and reading the Bhagavat Gita, I understand that whatever in this world we achieve to please ourselves does not really give us peace. I also find that doing science might be just pleasing myself or my ego. It will not give me peace so should I quit doing my MSc?
Acharya Prashant: Well, if you have read the Bhagavat Gita, Shri Krishn clearly says there that a living being (jeev) has no option to quit action. Action will continue to happen. Right now, it is one action to be pursuing a particular course and then it would be another action to not pursue that course. Whatsoever comes from the actor is called an action, right? The actor decided at some point, “let me do this course,” that's an action. The actor decides at some point, “let me not do this course;” that too is an action.
Have you gone beyond the actor? And if it is the actor still playing himself out, it's going to be called an action. So, it's not that you can quit acting. If it's the Bhagavat Gita you're referring to, then go to the core message. The core message is: ‘act not for yourself.’ That's not going to bring you contentment or peace. Act for the sake of Krishn and Krishn is just a euphemism. Act for the sake of completion, act for the sake of freedom. That's what Krishn stands for.
Krishn is not a person; Krishn is not some fellow talking to another living being called Arjun. Krishn is not an author. Krishn is a euphemism, a metaphor, a symbol. Krishn stands for Freedom, Peace, Totality in contrast to the feeling of incompleteness we live in, the feeling of incompleteness that guides us. That's the constitution of the actor—a point driven by incompleteness. Now, either the actor can work for himself—and what would it mean for the actor to work for himself? It would mean that the actor is working in a way that continues his incompleteness. The actor works, gets a particular reward and what is the reward? Your existence will be maintained. That's the reward. Is that not the reward? All of us see. What is it that we all want? Security, right? Assurance? We want to be more of ourselves and what are we, fundamentally? Incomplete Beings.
